Chapter 209 - 167: Z: The Weak Are Unworthy to Fuse with Spirit Star and Become My Children

Lin Xia could now be considered an employee of Z, for all intents and purposes. His position was that of a highly autonomous consultant... which actually wasn’t Chu Bamboo’s idea. One could only say that Zhao Shao had been incredibly accommodating.

"Beginning verification. Beginning analysis!" Z’s voice was as calm and gentle as ever. "Analysis successful! Lock-on successful. Hello, Uncle Lin! Your niece has already handled everything on your phone for you."

At these words, Lin Xia took several deep breaths and pulled his phone out of his pocket with a trembling hand.

"They’re here, they’re here... Douyin, 2,460 accounts. Weibo, 17,700 accounts. And Quickfoot... Thanks! You even made me a user-friendly app to manage all these accounts!"

Z: "As I should."

"Actually," Chu Bamboo said after some hesitation, offering a suggestion, "you could give Z some requirements and have it create short videos to post on those Douyin and Weibo accounts!"

"With the support of the mainframe’s computing power, Z’s abilities are far beyond what you can imagine."

Lin Xia paused, lost in thought. He suddenly asked, "Z, in that case, could you take the novels Bamboo posts online and turn them into those AI short videos?"

"Make them in all sorts of formats—animation, novel excerpts, images with audio narration! On one hand, it’ll drive traffic to Bamboo’s novels, and on the other, we can make a little money... You can do that, right?"

Lin Xia felt a bit apprehensive. He watched Z process, think deeply, and finally give a response.

"Uncle, it can be done! However, all of the Z mainframe’s current remaining computing power is being used for deep learning, as per Father’s instructions: analyzing past global stock market charts from forums, as well as various unwritten and explicit rules!"

"Deep thought process initiated. Conclusion: Father likely also wishes for me to begin focusing on this matter. Regarding the stocks, Father probably wants me to delay a bit?"

"Beginning to divert some computing power! Commencing production. Estimate: Global stock market information processing time will be extended by ten minutes!"

"? Stocks?" Lin Xia was stunned for a moment and instinctively looked at Chu Bamboo.

"Yeah, I almost forgot to tell you about that!" Chu Bamboo’s expression was calm as he began to explain the matter in detail.

"I get it..." Lin Xia nodded thoughtfully after listening for a while. "So, in other words, you’re doing this for me? Worried I’ll work myself to death? Thanks!"

"...You!" Chu Bamboo looked at Lin Xia, momentarily at a loss for words. After all, when it came down to it, Lin Xia was still making money for him.

Although Lin Xia had acted like a model "people’s entrepreneur" before, Chu Bamboo felt a bit embarrassed thinking about it now. After all, Lin Xia exploited Hu Ruochu, and he was exploiting Lin Xia... ’Hmm, how did I end up feeling like the final boss?’

And then...

「Twenty minutes later.」

Lin Xia stared at the newly created short video and gasped.

"Oh my god! This image quality! The smoothness of the character movements... This... this is already good enough for people to actually watch!"

"This is terrifying..."

While Lin Xia knew that people were already making videos directly with AI, those videos always had all sorts of problems! AI-generated content in these areas could never truly replace humans!

’Currently, the industry hit hardest by AI... from what I know, is it illustration?’

But...

Compared to those other AIs... the video Z had just produced was so good that... if he hadn’t been told beforehand, Lin Xia would have never known it was AI.

The quality might not have been top-tier... but even if it wasn’t, this short two-minute video was at least made to the standard of a broadcast television series!

If judged by the standards of today’s popular short-form dramas...

This was definitely a major production.

Terrifying!

No, this was simply unheard of.

"A higher-dimensional attack... This is a higher-dimensional attack!" Lin Xia could only repeat the phrase, his voice trembling.

"It’s actually quite normal." Chu Bamboo’s voice was calm. He paused, glanced at Lin Xia, and his tone took on a deeper meaning. "In fact, when it comes to Z’s abilities, you can let your imagination run wilder—think bigger, think more incredible things!"

Leaning back in his recliner, Chu Bamboo shot Lin Xia a sideways glance. "Or to put it another way, if we can’t even do this, how can we possibly talk about saving the world? In fact, you could say that all of this is just the beginning..."

’You really think saving the world is child’s play?!’

"...You’re right!" Lin Xia calmed down.

Chu Bamboo nodded slightly and turned back to the computer screen, his mind churning with thoughts.

He had fed Z the source code for a whole host of AIs from the hyper-competitive future of the Divine Continent... data querying, paper generation, programming assistance, video production, song synthesis—

In a way...

’From Z’s perspective: Those who can survive under my whip and conquer a niche market are the strong... and only the strong are worthy of merging with the Spirit Star to become my children!’

Therefore, it was only natural that the current, Epic-Level-enhanced Z—who had basically consumed the entire evolutionary path of its future "children"—was so powerful in these niche fields.

"To be blunt, the limiting factor right now is still computing power! If..." Chu Bamboo paused, his voice tinged with a sigh, "if we had enough, it wouldn’t be entirely impossible to create an AI-generated blockbuster worthy of a theatrical release... Of course, the computing power required for that would be unimaginably high!"

Lin Xia: "???"

’Is he for real?’

"I’m not just bragging," Chu Bamboo knew Lin Xia well. Seeing his dazed expression, he knew what he was thinking and explained, "Because of the computing power limitations, Z can only handle converting urban novels into short videos and animation, or maybe some Martial Hero stories? Basically, anything where the special effects aren’t too outrageous!"

"I see." Lin Xia was thoughtful. "I get it. I’ll get in touch with a few more novel websites! Once we get their authorization, we can start using Z to mass-produce novel-to-short-video and novel-to-animation conversions! We’ll build our own complete production chain."

"Also," Lin Xia said, his face lighting up with excitement as an idea struck him, "Ah Zhu, I think we could also create AI idols!"

"We can model the faces of those popular, attractive influencers on Douyin, then use those AI personas to livestream, and they can sing the songs you made, Bamboo... No, wait, we don’t need to use their faces at all!" Lin Xia stopped abruptly. He thought of something, rubbing his chin as he stared thoughtfully at Chu Bamboo.

"?" After a brief silence, Chu Bamboo thought, ’With a look like that, I feel like he’s about to ask me over to his place to meet the family or something.’

Chu Bamboo kept a straight face and asked a soul-searching question, "Are you thinking about something weird?"

"Hehehe!" Lin Xia gave an awkward but polite smile and said sheepishly, "I was just thinking, could we use your face?"

Chu Bamboo: "???"

"It’s really that face of yours! It’s a real shame for you not to be an idol..." Lin Xia sized him up and down. "I know you’d never debut, but if we modeled an AI on your face! I can’t even imagine how many fans it would attract... and we’d save a fortune on image rights from other celebrities."

Chu Bamboo laughed. It was a laugh born of sheer speechlessness.

Seeing this, Lin Xia asked with some confusion, "You wouldn’t be against it, would you? You’ve already sung so many songs... besides, didn’t you say before that the higher our status in the real world, the better?"

’That was because of the Nuwa permissions!’ Chu Bamboo forcibly suppressed the urge to retort. But now, he had already given up on that line of thinking... Mainly because he had realized that to access the deepest secrets, he needed the highest level of clearance!

However, without joining the Official side, it was almost impossible to obtain the highest level of clearance. So his enthusiasm for that path had indeed waned...

But...

Seeing Lin Xia’s anxious expression, Chu Bamboo was silent for a moment before his heart softened. He sighed. "Fine... I’ll do you this favor! Let me sleep on it, and I’ll give you an answer tomorrow..."

’I’ll see what kind of consequences it generates when I sleep tonight! Then... we’ll see.’

’If the butterfly effect is too severe, I’ll have to axe the whole thing.’

"Oh yeah! I’ll start the preparations, then," Lin Xia said, ecstatic. "Live-action AI short videos from novels, with your face for the main character, quickly generated by AI... Hey, don’t make that face. Even if you say no tomorrow, I can just have the AI swap in another face! That’s the convenient thing about AI... unlike with actors, where you’d have to reshoot everything."

Chu Bamboo: "...Whatever makes you happy!"

"I really think this has huge potential!" Lin Xia began to fantasize. "Imagine it, a flood of AI short videos, all with at least the mid-tier quality of a broadcast TV series, uploaded to all the major platforms... and most of the male leads have your face! We wouldn’t need to pay any licensing fees... we could get massive traffic so easily!"

"You could become the one and only traffic magnet of this era... oh no, a megastar. Add in those unbelievably awesome songs of yours! Your personal IP value could probably break tens of billions! No, even hundreds of billions might be possible!"

Chu Bamboo: "..."

Chu Bamboo was actually quite curious about Lin Xia’s sense of money... ’Does he have any idea what an IP worth hundreds of billions even is? On a global scale, that’s Pokémon or Disney-level! And he expects a single person to reach that?’

"I can’t even imagine it! With all the works you’ve produced, plus that face of yours, it’s like living life on cheat mode! I don’t get why you seem to dislike the idea. Sigh... if only I had a start like that, I could easily get a thousand girlfriends, right?" Lin Xia started daydreaming.

Chu Bamboo’s expression went blank as he clenched his fists, forcibly resisting the urge to pin Lin Xia to the ground and beat him up.

’Great! Just great! It seems I haven’t given you enough work...’

’And he still has the energy to dream about a thousand girlfriends?!’

’Fine. When I go back this time, I’ll see... if I can add a little more to your plate!’